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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23306761">The Dull Thing</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elfen1012/pseuds/Elfen1012'>Elfen1012</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Pocket Monsters: Sword &amp; Shield | Pokemon Sword &amp; Shield Versions</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Domestic, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Jealousy, Marnie being mean but like not seriously, Marnie complains about coming in second and Gloria oops her way into gentrifying spikemuth, Near Future</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 13:47:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,766</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23306761</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elfen1012/pseuds/Elfen1012</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Years after Gloria's and Marnies ascent to championship and gym leader status, not much as about them has changed even as the world has, and for at least one of them, that's really fucking annoying.  A very belated Christmas gift to a beloved friend.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Mary | Marnie/Yuuri | Gloria</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>61</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Dull Thing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigerLilly22/gifts">TigerLilly22</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>     It’s easier than you’d think to feel a crushing sense of defeat while face first in a Wooloo. It’s better than feeling a crushing sense of defeat against rocks or say in a rusty garbage bin. All the same this was defeat in soft wool. A full bodied feeling of warmth, and a surprisingly pleasant scent, and it's just as defeaty, for lack of any sense of linguistic flare.</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>Morpeko’s had just about enough of this shit, and I’m not surprised to feel the little guy turn me over like a well grilled steak. My head is still largely engulfed in Wooloo wool, but my eyes are faced out and I guess that matters for something. It’s a better view at least. Gloria’s little pokepark has a lovely horizon facing Spikemuth. Upon this grassy hill as the sun tucks right behind the dark windows and grey concrete of the city I can see the lights of my neon tracked skyline clearly, especially the purple gleam of my ugly new Arena, the Rose Company’s newest gift to Spikemuth. I stare hard to see if I can make out the biggest insult, it’s got Gloria’s name on it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     I think of turning over and embracing the wool death of the universe, then Morpeko growls at me. Messaged received little dude. Stars work for me, light pollution not a problem this night, the dusk ring is almost gone. The time I got left can go to filling up the night sky with random ass constellations, and god I don’t know, vibing? That’s a thing now right</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “A’Marnie you vibing on my Wooloo?” Gloria’s crashes into my life as always with that cute Wedgurst accent of hers. And here I thought I still had an hour at least.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Watching Spikemuth, until you showed up, now I’m waiting for your Inteleon to snipe me from the bushes and tie up the loose ends, are you seriously hiding behind a tree?” I can see that slick blue bastard, and he flashes a smile. He wanted me to see him, a warning. A threat. “Hey Skinny-And-Shitty, I’ve known you since your best move was crying all over someone; don’t you even dream of dreaming about giving me that look. You’re nothing but a magikarp with lungs and too many limb!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Be nice,” Gloria complains, to which of us I’m not sure. She’s focusing her attention on my traitorous cute ball of fluzz she’s giving free tummy scratches. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “You get her belly Rubs, I am her lifelong never ending rival, we are not the same,” I chastise my Morpeko and achieve my secret goal of hearing Gloria laugh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     I’m on my feet and ready to go before we get too lost in the toosed barbs, and before I get genuinely jealous of my own wild child girlfriend. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “So you ready?” I ask, sneaking a peek at my pokedex. It’s a handy mirror when I need to check if the wooloo ruined my makeup, and when it has, if I can pass it off as a new look. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     She doesn’t even glance when the heavy crack of metal on ground hits and her Corvoknight lands ready to be our chariot into town. Gloria’s busy sliding an arm around mine and giving me one of those unshakeable smiles she has on every single goddamn magazine cover. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “I’ve been waiting on you.”</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>     “So if you could use any pokeball, what would you pick?” Gloria picks up the conversation where it has languished between every bite of her pizza. </span>
</p><p><span>     “Depends,” I say checking my phone and not reading what's on it. </span><span><br/>
</span> <span>“Ignore the depends, lets say its going to work no matter what.”</span></p><p>
  <span>     “Premier ball, its free?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Not the Premier ball.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Pokeball? It’s cheap?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Gloria replied first in a pained moan. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “No don’t think about money.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Of course she had the luxury of that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Well… probably the Love Ball?” Gloria’s eye shifted up with some immediate sense of surprise, one half of her lips curling in amusement. “What’s funny about it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Oh absolutely nothing,” Gloria countered taking a sip from her long cooled tea. She thought I might move on, I bet, as she retreated from the topic. Glares, she earns glares. “I was just a little surprised is all. I expected something like a Dusk Ball, something on brand-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Oh and what so wrong about the Love Ball?” I dared her, double dared her, dared her enough to take a bite out of a slice so confident in how much foolishness Gloria was gonna step herself into.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “I don’t know; it's more pink than I expected.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Two blinks past before I’m pointing. Sure I’m older now. The leather jackets buttoned and I’ve leaned more into pants these days, but the shirt underneath, pink as hell. Tonights purse is well would you look’it! Pride button on the jacket, pretty fucking pink. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Let me rephrase,” Gloria retreated, “It’s very hearts. I think it’s cute, just not what I had considered of you! I’ll get you a set for your birthday!” No way she waits that long, I’m expecting the box by thursday and honestly, that is endearing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Hearts are cute in their own way, a clashin’ look is me all around,” I offer, “Well you then? Your ball of choice?” Her flannel jacket’s hanging set is all a mix from my perspective, from dusk, to ultra, even a premier proving she’s not </span>
  <em>
    <span>as </span>
  </em>
  <span>wasteful as I worry.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Quickball,” she answers and I pretend not to think of a reply both cutting and lewd, “I like the gold x on the front. And it’s always fun to just nail on the opening with a throw, right?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     It matches her plaid look and the wool of her little hat. A little too flashy for such a simple style. How had I fallen for such a tacky girl? And how dare she pull it off so well with a perpetually silly smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     And yet, I fill a twist of annoyance, she’s being foolish again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “You’re not wearing your logo disaster.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “I’m not on camera.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Aren’t you going to lose your sponsorships that way?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “I don’t know. They’ll have to beat me first,” Gloria mused her lips twitching with a soundless giggle, “Maybe they’ll team up with you to destroy me, the ultimate betrayal~” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     It’s almost insulting how she sings that plot out with the same fearful deference I give wild rookidee. Some of me almost wants to say yeah, yeah I’ll sell out and then Morpeko’ll show you how conducive Inteleon is to a fist full of lightening. Some of me gets really god damn melted when she shows exactly how much she trusts me. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     No, I’m just stupid, and a softie, and she might be spoiled, but I want to hold her up sometimes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “You’ve never been poor and it shows. Don’t let it get to your head, problems are always coming, and losing your sponsors will put an’ end to you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Gloria gives me a wry grin not fully getting the depths of my worry. She never was one that saw much beyond the immediate issue, very twists in the wind type. Trouble was the wind breaks mountains sometimes. Her Pokeranch is doing well, but what about when her own success might ruin her. An educational and conservation grant helped fund the ranch and if it started making anymore money, well the facilities would need to be better to keep the grants; another thing she can’t afford even with the Rose Companies board trying to use her to prop her image up. They might love having a shiny mascot but how shiny will she be when the bills come. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Not to mention what it was doing to Spikemuth. Sure people had jobs now, the whole construction and service industry boomed, in a deeply annoying way she had managed to complete my plan to save it. Yet with a bandage not a potion, and this one was starting to stink. Gentrification hit along with new business. The arena cleared old factories for pricey entertainment and while people had more money, the bills were getting worse. That was true for Gloria, as it was for the Spikemouth poor. We were getting richer and poorer, and it’s a god damn rat race for which outstrips the other. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     She isn’t prepared, she’s not taking it seriously, she’s not even pretending seriously! </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “I know, but it’s going to be okay, so eat some alright?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     And she’s so easily confident. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “I’m fine,” I reformulate a better argument while chewing on a bite myself, enjoying the savoury flavored meat of it, </span>
  <em>
    <span>something other than curry</span>
  </em>
  <span>, “I’m just gonna make you take budgeting lessons.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Oh you’re going to make me go to school Professor?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “No no no, I ain’t looking to slap your hand with a ruler or nothin’ I’ll just take all the money in the divorce.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Oh and who says I’m going to say yes Marnie?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Well,” my lip curls up just a touch, “You can’t do much better than perfect can you?”</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>     The “bad,” though if punks and some harmless lewd hotels counted as bad Real-estate people need to get thicker skin, parts of Spikemuth have this purple glow to them at night, the way the ocean mist fuses and skitters off the neon lights, especially with a light drizzle. It looks like god damn set dressing to be honest, and it's one hazy and moody way to welcome me home after pizza. If it bothers Gloria, well, she’s never said or seemed like it. She’s taken to Spikemuth well, even if she never really matched the style. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     But that was Gloria, she’s sweet and smooth to drink down, it's hard for her to rub up poorly against any other nut, just treated everyone like loose Yamper. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Or maybe it’s just hard to be scared with a seven foot tall lanky blue lizard with guns for fingers behind you.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Is the arena doing well for you? I know the challenge is what’s keeping you. Who’d of thought being champions would be such a date killer,” Gloria bemound. I hadn't the time to reply with witticisms, apparently the challenge had caught up to Spikemuth. The young and foolish were finishing up northward and scheduling for the next twenty matches were starting to clutter her calendar. Gosh, how many made it to Piers in her day? Were they being softer? Or more theatrical to keep eyes? Either way someone daft managed to schedule a match at three and three fifteen this friday and texts away needed to explain that no, she could not fight, heal, re-equip, get camera crew ready and have the arena cleared in ten minutes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Honestly, made her think it would be best to do the Piers route and just battle in the alley and send them crying and running. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “First match is wednesday.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Already?” Gloria whined like she was gonna fight the whole damn queue, instead of at most three people at the end, “Ruins my plans, I was going to bring you out Wednesday.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “I would have turned you down anyways.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “But I’m so cute.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     I gave her a glance, “and yet,” she laughed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     My lip twisted, I was forgetting the mass of emails coming my way when Gloria gave me that bright smile despite the jests. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Never enough for my star Marnie huh? Yell’s right I was never good enough. Inteleon darling, pick me up when I faint dramatically.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Hold her up so I can kick her.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Hold me up so the little one’s out of range.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “I’m not afraid to headbutt.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     I’m not sure I know what a text is anymore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “It keeps your forehead in kissing range,” she leans forward to prove her point and I turn right around, down the road to my apartment. “The barbs never cease.” I hear her footsteps follow me. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “I’m made of edges. It’s the piercings.” I’m made of insecurity stitched with failures, I regret not bringing heeled boots. When her eyes shift down and meet mine, I feel vertigo instead of jubilance. She doesn’t think of me as less of course, I just do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “No, they just make you hot.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     There is a mundane quality to our flirting that comes from years of shared history, matched with the lack of questions and steps to bring me home. She turns without a glance as we hit the corner and the old concrete obelisk of my apartment building spikes out with the rest of my city. The neon sign from the convenience store on the first floor has been dead for years. I might have a nice two bedroom upstairs, modern and with private roof access and balcony that makes me ignore that the halls smell like weed, but compared to her ranch it really looks like a shitjhole outside, even to me. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “So,” my eyes flicked back towards Gloria camped below a flickering lamplight. She blushed in a way that had nearly ceased to flicker on us once we passed twenty-two. Her chin dipped down and I could see her body shift weight side to side on her hips, a twitchy finger tapped against a pokeball. This wasn’t the first time this had happened, even this month. I suppose some things take a while to become mundane, “Can I stay over?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     I think I said yes. Hard to tell though, my mouth was dry.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>     The awkward spector of later implied by staying over seemed to spare us for now. She’d slinked herself into the pale pink of my couch, clutching tight Morpeko’s passed out form. Little guy had a hard time making it past ten with those mood swings. Gloria stripped down to her casual clothes, a healthy pack of her things always on rotation in my home. I had swapped to polka-dot jammies and a black band-T a few sizes too big. The need to prove we were sexy had faded even if the tension of that possibly coming up hadn't.     </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Woo!” She’s either celebrating my return or the Pika Pizza brand snack bites I’m bringing in from the kitchen, proving our diet has never improved with age. I don’t have to ask to know her prefered beer; I drop it on the table along with my can, earning further accolaids. Truly I’m a goddamn hero.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Move bitch,” she does so happily, knowing full well I’m joking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     My place isn’t massive, but it's not skimpy, I don’t lack any comfort I could give a damn and a half about. The couch is big enough for me to sleep on, though we’ve not bothered to leave a seat between us, the floor space is good enough to move and let my pokemon live. There’s a balcony, just a concrete box with metal bars to keep you from falling out and a grand view of the Pink Flare Theater’s neon sign. It’s got quite the buzz now that the drizzle thickened, the water vapor giving a blurred glow that shines and lets me see the droplets bouncing off Toxicroak’s dumb, cute forehead. Guess he’s found a nice spot to sleep tonight, curled up with Gloria’s Glaceon.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s some kinship there, between us and them, I think. More than I wanna know. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “I’m Marnie I stare menacingly into the sky, and pretend I can smell trouble in the rain, just so I can ignore poor Gloria.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     I give the poor Gloria a devil's glare given her fake me is atrocious in it’s accuracy. What fucking right does she have to burn me so correctly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “I doubt, I missed much,” I replied, giving my attention back to her instead of the cold air and mists of water that crossed into my apartment whenever the wind caught.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Cruel, not untrue, but definitely cruel,” she rewards me with a smile I don’t bother returning, mine are always so unnatural, “I was going to ask if you wanted to watch something?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “What’s it matter, you’re going to play the switch?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “I know, ‘cause you don’t care what's on, but it’s the asking that matters not the answer. I’m polite.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “You just like the sound of your own voice.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Marnie, I’m famous for being shockingly quiet.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Not to me,” I snap back rather casually, I've got phone games of my own to play while she loads up, I’d flip a coin between Fire Emblem or Mystery Dungeon, “You just don’t want the rest of the world to know your cute accents as thick as your Corvoknight’s skull.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “You’re absolutely terrible,” Gloria says at the end of her laugh. She mostly stops just to shove a pika pizza bite in. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “It’s because I low key hate you,” I admit completely on accident, risking immediate assassination by Inteleon.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Really?” she replies like I told her I hate pickles, “That’s rather funny given I know you love me something fierce. So, what do you hate most about me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     I’ve stopped playing my phone game. My eyes are still on the gotcha units, but my mind is nowhere near, it's dancing in the sound of rain, some beats I can hear the neighbors playing. In my pause, a car horn blares. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “That everything I try to do in my life, you’re going to do it first, better, and without even really wanting it. That you’re such a bright star that it makes me look dim by comparison, and the more I look at you like a dumb love starved puppy, the duller I get. It's nothing you even do, or me, it’s just what is, and I think that’s the part I hate the very most, you aren’t trying to be, you just are the best, better than me.” I begin the next match, and no one dares say shit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     It takes a half minute before something hits my lap, capturing my eyes. I never meant to meet Gloria’s look there, head in my lap as she toyed with the switch. Our eyes connected and I felt a sudden drop right into the gutter, banished for being an absolute prick. I would have cried if Gloria had the good sense to leave the room for five minutes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Fat chance.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “I don’t get it,” Gloria’s of course the first to say something, she looks sad, a bit confused. A little dumb, but what else is new. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Oh, were you there when you wiped me at the tournament again and again for over a decade or did you send your clone?” God what an annoying answer, I suddenly hate her like just a bit more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “No, I get that like, it’s a little annoying. I’m not going to say sorry for that-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Hell, I most certainly do not want to hear sorry for that. You deserve it, being better.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Well I’m not gonna say sorry, it's just, the dull thing confuses me. A bright star, like, your fans are ravid! Marnie, I'm absolutely ravid for you! Feral even. When was the last time you went absolutely feral for dullness!” Gloria spoke with gestures, voice picking up to what I gotta say approached 1.5 speed at the very least. Riled up Gloria was a particularly rare band of Gloria, five star rarity at the very least.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “The fact your horny for me does way less for my self esteem than you think.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “No, least not what I mean, you fashionable fool, the fact that I would worship your every inch is overshadowed by how your brightness guides my every move,” Gloria rolled out of my lap, preferring  two levels too intense stare only a few inches from my face. Taking it as a challenge, only naturally I glared back. “Everything you do is so brilliant, an act of expression, heroics, and rebellion all wrapped up in a smoking package.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Thank you, also what the fuck.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Listen, you’re the one that made me realize the power for good we could accomplish, the ranch, helping restore Spikemuth, I could have never come up with a third of that. I barely know how to make camp curry. All of that has my name on it, but it’s yours. There is a reason you have a whole team loving you every single day harder than stone, because not a soul can miss how bright you burn. Doesn’t matter how many tournaments I win, I’m team Yell till death.”</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>In my twenties, I’m not too old to blush at that. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Even if I’m good on a flag, it’s not childish to wish you could do anything by your own will, with your own power,” I lean back into the wooloo soft comfort of my couch, hoping the cushions will open wide and pull me into hell. “I feel like a shitty idol, and guilty for feeling shitty. I’m sorry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “That’s pretty human I think.”</span>
</p><p><span>     “You feel like this sometimes?”</span><span><br/>
</span> <span>     “No, but I’m an alien from another world.” I nearly shove her off my lap right into the floor for that, nearly. Mostly I just groan. “Hey Marnie, you weren’t born a star, you became one. You walked out proud and strong onto the field even as a kid, you took dark types from stigmatized to one of galars most famous. Spikemuths gym is the most feared, dragons got nothing on you. You launched yourself into the air by your own two hands and </span><em><span>made</span></em><span> a star out of yourself. It’s why I’m so blindingly in love.”</span></p><p>
  <span>     That earns another groan. This one passes for a smile. She makes me so sick when she’s sweet like that, it makes me want to eat her alive. How many times can one person massage my ego, inside away from the neon and rain, where its warm and quiet and better or greater don’t matter. How many times can she make her love me when I’m a shitty little gremlin at heart, won’t she get tired? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     And how has it worked every time? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “I’m still a jealous idiot who, like, at least a little bit hates you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “I’ll take it,” Gloria edges closer on her knees to kiss me, I don’t even think before leaning forward to meet her. Her lips are ever so familiar. “I don’t think you got half as much hate in you as you think. I should know, I’ve been following this star for years.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     I move to absolutely justifiably shove her off, but woe is me, my arms latch around instead of shoving. Suddenly I’m holding her tight all against my will, next you’re going to tell me I’m grinning like some southern fool I know very well.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “Your smile practice is working.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     “It’s been a fucking decade, fucking seriously?”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I was originally going to put more effort into their accents but I'm an American and that's just vaguely offensive so I stopped. </p><p>Will I be accepting Criticism for any of my creative choices? No.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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